“SicurSkiWeb”, an innovative project that binds together the National Police, the Bruno Kessler Foundation and the operators of the Pampeago and Pinzolo ski resorts in Trentino takes off.

An agreement between the National Police, the Bruno Kessler Foundation and the operators of the Pampeago and Pinzolo ski resorts was signed this morning in Trento. Its aim is to produce an experimental predictive platform that may increase ski safety. The “SicurSkiWeb” project, thanks to the use of innovative data gathering tools and IT systems based predictive techniques, will create a multimedia database - managed by the National Police – that will identify areas of greater risk and provide real-time strategies aiming at accident prevention.
The new technology tackles ski safety in a completely new perspective: it allows to forestall critical phenomena, to reduce risks, to manage in a better and more rational manner the professional resources engaged in prevention activities and consequently to increase the touristic appeal of ski resorts. The agreement was signed by Trento’s Police Commissioner Giorgio Iacobone (in the picture), the Director of the Bruno Kessler Foundation’s Center for Information Technology, Paolo Traverso, by the President of the APT Val di Fiemme and ITAP spa’s CEO (Alpe Pampeago Touristic Development, Piero De Godenz, and by Antonio Masè, President of Funivie Pinzolo SpA.

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The development of this discipline is too often accompanied by the idea that skiing can be practiced by anyone, even by people without experience or proper physical training. Skiing is now an increasingly popular loved and practiced sport. This growth has been made possible, on the one hand, by operators who are constantly improving the quality of facilities, expanding their capacity and speed, the number and width of the tracks, and reducing the steepness of the slopes. On the other hand, the diffusion of new models that enhance ski performance.
It is not unusual to see novice skiers tackling the slopes at excessive speeds, a behavior that, combined with fatigue, or alcohol abuse, can cause accidents with serious consequences both for themselves and for others. Main initiatives used sofar to counteract this phenomenon have been Information about the dangers associated with inappropriate behavior, reporting of the most dangerous places and protection of obstacles.
From now on though, thanks to research and technological innovation, it will be possible to take safety  and prevention of accidents to a higher level. This is the aim of SicurSkiWeb, an innovative project that sees the Police, the Bruno Kessler Foundation and operators of ski resorts and Pinzolo Pampeago together for the construction of an experimental predictive platform to increase ski safety. All through a systematic collection of information that will allow to reference geographically accidents and to better understand the link between environmental factors and those related to the ability of individuals.
This will identify the riskiest points of the track, as well as the most critical times of the day and seasons and identify, in real time, strategies aimed at preventing the risk of accidents. The first step of the project SicurSkiWeb provides for the collection of data by staff of the National Police involved in the "Mountain Rescue and Safety."
To collect information in a timely and complete manner, the project involves the use of telephony devices (smartphones) with Android operating system for the automatic detection of the location, through GPS localization or directly on the map, the time of the action, in addition to information regarding the subjects involved (nationality, age, skiing ability, physical condition, etc.). The tools will also allow the acquisition of multimedia data, such as the interview of a witness or photographs of the accident site.
The collected data will be sent in real time to the police operations center and  included in the database, allowing a constant evaluation of the risk on the slope.
The SicurSkiWeb project also provides the opportunity to acquire via web, using electronic modules and details of the action on the map, historical data recorded in previous ski seasons.

All this information will grant access - from fixed or mobile stations, or via the web – to a platform that putting in relation the historical data on accidents with data on daily or seasonal passages of a single slope, will anticipate any critical points "to be observed" and to put in place the necessary preventive actions. .

The system will also allow to quickly carry out on the spot all activities of the Judicial and administrative Police, simplifying the preventive and control activities and reducing the suspension of sporting activities.
This project - commented Salvatore Ascione, Deputy Police Commissioner Assistant, Manager of the General Prevention and Public Rescue Office of the Police Headquarters of Trento, who the idea of the project originated from – helps tackle the topic of safety, not only for ski, in a completely innovative perspective that helps anticipate phenomena thus enhancing the management of available professional resources in a better, more rational manner, in times when they are fewer and fewer”.
 “Once again – added Cesare Furlanello, Head of the MPBA Unit (Predictive Models for Biomedicine and the Environment) of the Bruno Kessler Foundation – we are working for the local community, side by side with the police forces and the operators of the skiing resorts of Pampeago and Pinzolo, showing how applications of research can result in benefits for sportspeople, a more efficient management of theprevention and control activities and added commercial value of ever safer resorts”.